


Kingship

by RadiatorfromSpace



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Blue Blood A+ Parenting All Around, Breeding, Breeding Kink, Character Death, Elaborate Courtship Culture, Historical AU, Intersex Loki, M/M, Nonlinear Plotline (Two Plotlines in Different Time Periods), Odin's A+ Parenting, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Kink, Racism, Romance, Selective Depravity, The Realms are Referred to as Countries, Thor's A+ Parenting, Unreliable Death Narratives, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-03-22 19:05:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3740149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadiatorfromSpace/pseuds/RadiatorfromSpace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b> This fic is abandoned. Read for the porn and beautiful descriptions; there is at least one porn/y scene per chapter.</b>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>King Thor is married to Queen Jane, but he has never shared her bed. Indeed, Thor has no legitimate heir.  Instead, the otherwise sterling King gives all of his children to his consort, Loki. A decade-long love story.</p><p>As a boy, Thor loved his elder brother Baldr, the bright and shining Crown Prince whom no one found lacking. One decade later, Thor is king and no one who survived those years wants to speak of how this came to be. Now as a maddened, foreign king arrives uninvited on Asgard's shores, they may all be forced to confess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I refer to Loki’s Jotnar heritage as a tribal lineage from India. Loki's characterization is only loosely inspired by literary conventions from two types of classical Indian literature.
> 
>  **Khafti** – an ankle-length skirt w/ one center front panel, and one center back panel which covers the backs of the wearer’s legs. Wide slits between the two panels leave the outer legs bare. I coined “khafti” for my sanity as a writer. It is **_not_** authentic to India. Plenty of Loki's depiction is _**in**_ authentic. Questions? Ask.
> 
> Thanks to Umakoo for beta-reading!

I don’t know.  
  
When my lover comes to me  
and says such loving things,  
  
do all my parts become eyes  
or ears?  
  
Amarusataka, Sanskrit

 _Loki beat him to the finish line despite his bare feet and fluttering khafti. He lifted his proud, striking face to the sky and loosed a shrill scream of victory to the clouds above. His lean, muscular body arched, a streak of azure blue against the peachy hues of the dusking sky._  
  
_Thor held his knees and panted as his heart beat madly in his chest—the acute romantic fervor of youth. He did not trust himself to speak, now accustomed to the fact that Loki had chased away his characteristic ease and self-confidence, and neither were coming back. All the gold King Odin paid Thor’s masterful rhetoric tutors,_ wasted _when it came to this one, blue slip of a prince with red eyes and shining bangles._  
  
_They were mere children then, the exotic exile Prince Loki aged fourteen and Prince Thor but a year older. Despite Loki’s youth, he surely knew the way Thor looked at him, understood that the blond prince’s heart both crumpled and gushed at the sight of him; how he would follow him to the edge of east. And Loki held out the silent promise to fulfill all of Thor’s half-imagined wishes, if young Thor could but cease his stumbling long enough to perform the Jotnar’s strange courtship dance.  
_  
_Bold Loki, strange Loki, with a mouth full of poetry and a mind that twisted and turned in ways Thor could not fathom. Those taunting, narrow hips, the barbed tongue, and all that attitude._  
  
_In the beginning, it had all been a jest of Crown Prince Baldr’s, Thor thought wonderingly._  
  
**Thor** , _Loki hissed, his quicksilver face shifting from joy to anger. What had Thor done wrong? He did not know and it did not matter. The blue prince dug his feet into the soil and flung out his hand, fierce and proud and demanding. Like a thrall under a sorcerer’s enchantment, all of Thor’s blood rushed forward to follow, his body lurching after. Then Loki dashed ahead into the trees once more._  
  
_Helpless, Thor ran after him._  
  
_Even if he caught him, what could he do? Thor was old enough to know the purpose of his manhood, young enough to be ignorant of where to put it._  
  
~  
  
His fair brow bears deep ruts. His hands, arranged at ease on the arms of the throne, itch for a sword. His neck wants for the removal of his heavy crown. The skin beneath his formal robes of ermine and velvet is damp from perspiration. His spine aches from maintaining his regal posture for the fifth hour. The last hour. Just one more.  
  
King Thor is renowned amongst the common class for his propriety. Ever patient, ever courteous, ever sympathetic and noble and lovely and gracious to the unending river of wanting _mouths_ that flow to his audience chamber. In one hour, audiences will be concluded, and he can remove to the solitude in his chambers, or the training yard, without offending a single one of them.  
  
He grips the armrests tighter. His radiant raiment distracts from the white of his knuckles.  
  
At the clerk’s call, the next petitioner separates himself from the crowd clustered against the far wall of the audience chamber. He kneels before the dais, before the twin thrones where King Thor sits in authority beside his Queen Jane. When he rises, the little man’s eyes slide helplessly over the gilt, the furs, the painstakingly carved oaken thrones, the crowns, and the embroidered canopy above everything else.  
  
A representative from the southern region: A drought has ended much of the crops and highwaymen proceed to reap the rest. The man requests King Thor to release the vassal lords from the capital with their soldiers to hunt down and execute the robbers.  
  
In the eleven years since the late King Odin commanded all the landed lords to remain in the palace at the capital on pain of death, the news has not reached the peasant class, or else they do not understand it.  
  
King Thor inclines his head as much as the crown will allow and commiserates with the southern representative. But no, he declares, the lords will remain where they are, and King Thor then commands the clerk at his right to send word to Master Heimdall to dispatch sufficient troops to address the bandits.  
  
Then three men in merchant’s clothes step forward. The clerk at Thor’s right announces their names, guild affiliations, and trades. Representatives from the major dyers, cloth makers, and cloth merchants guilds: They want dispensation from regular taxes for a major joint enterprise. Interesting. King Thor makes pleasant words to them, but it is a matter he can delegate to his council. He orders the clerk at his right to add the guilds’ petition to his lower council’s docket. One fewer thing he must handle.  
  
Their forgettable faces are replaced by that of Lord Fenrisulf.  
  
He is a great, hulking beast of a man with both personality and stubbornness in proportion to his size. He is six men thick and stands three heads over everyone else, which means he stands one head over even Thor. In King Thor’s youth, Fenrisulf looked all the more brutish in his elegant, costly garb. But Thor was coronated ten years ago, Lord Fenrisulf’s men are long since subsumed into the hive identity of King Thor’s army, and this talking bear cannot step outside the palace grounds without an arrow instantly plunging into his brains. The fine clothes make him look absurd, King Thor decides.  He suppresses his smirk.  
  
Lord Fenrisulf bows and does not rise until the clerk has concluded his titles.  
  
The lord wants an annulment for his marriage: his wretched lady wife is an adulteress. He bristles and blusters, enumerating the insults to his honor and noble heritage, and all the while King Thor cannot help marveling that the greatest slight to his prestige is this public announcement of his _fourth_ wife’s cuckolding.  
  
Lord Fenrisulf has no heirs, male or female. He has invented an excuse for seeking annulment from each wife.  
  
Poor Lady Loeding, then Lady Dromi. After that, Thor stopped caring and never committed their names to memory. Only last year did Lady Dromi find a second husband willing to chance her supposed barrenness.  
  
If only Lord Fenrisulf was not the favorite nephew of King Freyr of Vanaheim, whence Asgard imports many of its luxuries, several favorites of Loki’s included.  
  
King Thor delays. He offers his courtesies and makes a point of the special license he is granting his noble wife to travel to the healers at Bath for treatment, a two-month journey from the capital by horse. Three months with a retinue sufficient to her station. Then treatment for as long as the good healers see fit. Then she can journey back to Lord Fenrisulf for him to investigate the soundness of her treatment.  
  
The great brute is so overstuffed with pride or empty of brains to notice the meaning of King Thor’s language. As usual.  
  
King Thor has no interest in soiling the reputation of another noblewoman for this oaf. If the gods are good, Fenrisulf will die of some sudden illness before his wife returns.  
  
The beastly visage of Lord Fenrisulf melts away, to be replaced by another petitioner in want of something King Thor may grant him.  
  
How much longer? His hands want for a sword.  
  
~  
  
Once effectively alone in his chambers, Thor casts off his regal composure as he would a filthy, wretched thing. He stretches, makes unseemly noises of satisfaction as his joints pop, and begins divesting himself of his formal robes. He leaves them on a carved table for the servants of his privy chambers to collect into storage. For now, the pages keep well away, half hidden in corners and behind bookshelves, for knowledge of their ruler’s moods.  
  
He dons his training garb and buckles his sword belt around his trim, muscled waist. His foul mood is already lifting, he can feel it easing itself from his muscles as his mind blissfully anchors upon the prospect of leisure. And a training partner who does not speak, save to ask him if _he_ wants another round. He will enjoy the exertion, the thrill of the warrior’s mindless toil, and then visit beloved Loki.  
  
He hears the servants open the doors to the outermost chamber of his apartments. His brightening mood is suddenly appreciably dampened. He listens to the murmured courteous greetings, as servants give to their rulers, and then the distinctive clopping sound of heeled shoes against the marble floor. Loki is fond of such shoes.  
  
Thor takes a breath, summons his courtly manners for just a little while longer, and turns to his wife.  
  
Still wrapped in her court robes, Queen Jane gives him a gracious smile. It is _appropriate_ to reciprocate. He does, and his cheeks ache with the effort.  
  
Queen Jane has come to him with a bold necklace of his favorite color, azure blue, which draws attention to her bosom. Her handmaidens perfumed and arranged her hair, and rubbed rose petals on her cheeks and lips to redden them. Another mouth, then.  
  
He thinks of Loki with a sudden pang of longing.  
  
“My King, my sovereign _lord_ ,” Jane murmurs, her tongue curling lewdly around the word, “I had hoped to gain the privilege of relieving you, in, ah, the way you taught me last night.”  
  
Thor stares, his incredulity only concealed by decades of training. He gives her a dark smirk and his brow lifts slightly, as if the thought of whatever she is talking about speaks directly to the darkest corner of his lusts.  
  
“You are to me such a wicked temptation,” he purrs, “but I am due with my Master of Swords.” He bows to her and moves to leave. She stops him.  
  
“But what is an appointment with a commoner to one such as yourself?” Jane wheedles. She places a fair, delicate hand on his thick arm. Her fingers slide like serpents over the belly of his bicep and down into the hollow of his inner elbow. She steps forward, her heeled shoes making again that particular clopping sound Loki so enjoys.  
  
What did Nótt _say_ to Jane to embolden her so?  
  
“I am true to my word,” Thor answers with a winsome smile. He is taut as a bowstring, ready to snap, but he will not snub her. It would be _inappropriate._  
  
“And after? In the evening, shall I send my handmaidens away?”  
  
She does not mention Loki. She has never felt comfortable or secure enough to dare mention Loki by name to him.  
  
“My Queen?” he asks in the sweetest voice permitted in the rituals of court.  
  
Her face lifts, the surprise and hope despicably obvious on her face.  
  
“Please give my page the name of your cobbler,” he says, and departs for the training yard.  
  
Perhaps it is time to find a new proxy.  
  
~  
  
One of Loki’s maidservants admits Thor to his consort’s apartments. He bids the maid to silence with a gesture and she curtseys her submission.  
  
Thor steps quietly through the foyer and peers into the next room. It is sumptuously furnished, according to Loki’s tastes. There are several maidservants and children staggered two years apart throughout the room. Thor spies his lover on one of the silk upholstered chaises. He is all blue with startling red eyes, and pearly white teeth his elders filed down to points when he was just a child. He wears nothing but his jewelry and a khafti. His curly, blue-black hair streams down to his hips. When a strand slides over his shoulder, he lifts a bejeweled arm to push it back into place.  
  
Loki is letting one of Thor’s children play with the glittering bangles on his arm. The child is a toddler—Thor cannot remember his name—and he wraps his chubby, tiny fingers around the bands of metal, alternating between simply tugging at the ornaments and gnawing on them. Loki dips his arm invitingly, but he pulls his hand up at a right angle to prevent the child from removing the sterling silver bracelets. They shine as brightly as the day Thor gifted them to Loki.  
  
A soft smile graces Thor’s face. The Jotnar seldom remove such love tokens, and they only ever cast them off when they are leaving, for good. It is a sight Thor would give much to never witness again.  
  
Thor’s gaze travels from Loki’s pretty cheekbones to his expressive eyes to his fine, straight nose to his small lips. His Adam’s apple swells outward and the muscles in his throat stick out like thin wires against his skin when he turns his head. His defined clavicle creates an elegant line, just above the first necklace. His other necklaces hang farther down his flat chest, the usually puffy pectoral muscles having atrophied somewhat during the second trimester. Loki is all slim and lean, ever the lithe panther, until Thor’s gaze falls upon his stomach.  
  
The top of his khafti which girdles Loki’s narrow hips is folded over in front; it is too small now.  
  
Such details cause a tumble in Thor’s groin and the resulting ripples of lust emanate outward. How Thor has changed Loki.  
  
As Thor’s azure blue eyes rove over his azure blue consort’s luscious body, somewhere in his head sounds the dim echo of Baldr’s confused voice querying the reasons for his actions. It had been his idea. Then it became Thor’s. And then it grew into something precious and tender and shared and guarded between Loki and himself. Of all people, he had thought Baldr would understand.  
  
But none of that now.  
  
Thor goes to him.  
  
When Loki’s ruby eyes land on him, he murmurs greetings and something about refreshments. He begins to rise, but Thor places one hand on his bare, blue shoulder and the other on his heavy, swollen belly and gently presses him back down onto the chaise. Thor assumes the space beside him.  
  
“The servants can get it,” Thor says and smiles warmly at him. But Loki recognizes the way Thor’s heavy hand rests on his full womb and the blue prince bids the servants take the children away.  
  
As soon as the last of the unwanted people have disappeared behind closed doors, Thor straddles over Loki’s knees as he scoops both of his hands underneath his bejeweled consort’s abdomen. Very gently, Thor lifts his pregnant belly, watching relief flicker over Loki’s face. Thor imagines the change in pressure on the Jotunn’s internal organs, savoring it. He feels the weight: it is heavy. This is pleasing. Thor’s growing lust warms him.  
  
Nowadays, just the sight of Loki full with his child can unravel Thor’s kingly composure. His blue eyes instantly darken as his pupils glut themselves on the wicked sight. The entirety of his flesh begins tingling. And then the world shrinks down to the candlelit, sumptuously appointed room and _Loki_.  
  
Thor should not be doing this. He should ensure the stable transition of his reign to the next for his subjects—safeguard against the travesty of another civil war—by creating a legitimate heir with Queen Jane. He is doing wrong, and the sight of Loki so full with Thor’s errancy, the flagrant evidence of Thor’s base, uncivilized, selfish behavior is the gilt crown upon the royal pleasure the king takes in this activity.  
  
This time, the evidence came at twice the usual speed: two children, double the weight. Thor’s swelling cock twitches with interest. Loki’s belly is swollen with Thor’s fifth and sixth, and it is most pleasing. This is the second time Loki has carried twins. Thor tweaks the clever, fecund minx’s nose for being so good to him.  
  
He gently lowers Loki’s swollen belly, watching again the resulting changes in his consort’s face and breathing. Thor wants. He kneels on the carpet between Loki’s legs, groping Loki’s stomach and sucking lightly at the pristine blue skin where the swell ends and the ribs begin.  
  
The blue prince emits a soft cry. He shifts his hips in reaction to Thor’s touches, and Thor notes with satisfaction how this movement is ungraceful and effortful by this stage. Loki reaches a bejeweled hand beneath the front panel of his silk khafti to massage his wakening cock.  
  
“My love,” Loki murmurs, “the babies are restless.” Loki arches as Thor’s big hands squeeze the tender points of his thighs.  
  
Thor takes Loki’s forearm and tilts it so the bangles slide away from the wrist. He pulls the inner wrist against his mouth and begins to place open-mouthed, sucking kisses to the thin, tender, fragile skin. Loki coos and his eyes flutter.  
  
“I am already fantasizing about getting you with the next child,” Thor murmurs against his wrist.  
  
Loki laughs and places a hand on his distended belly as if to brace himself. Thor’s cock jumps at the sight. He loves seeing either his or Loki’s hands on the evidence of Thor’s depravity.  
  
“If I asked you for five, six, seven more, would you do it for me?”  
  
“Yes,” Loki answers, his eyes sparkling and his cheeks flushing purple. Blessed Loki, ever indulgent. They will make a great brood. Thor’s heartbeat quickens at the thought.  
  
“Would you ever grow tired of it? Answer me truly: Could there come a day when you no longer take pleasure in playing broodmare?”  
  
“My darling, I would use my seidr to keep myself fertile as long as I lived. I would bear you child after child. I could give you tens of children.”  
  
The deep groan rumbles from the king’s chest; he wants to do just that. His heart starts to rattle and excitement swells like a fiery blossom in his loins. Thor lifts the center length of his consort’s khafti and starts kissing and mouthing his blue cock.  
  
“Your poor body…” he murmurs.  He licks a wet stripe from balls to tip.  
  
Loki snorts. “I am _Jotunn_. Strong enough to battle skyclad in air that burns with the sun’s rage, strong enough to bear five hundred children. I can carry _quadruplets_ to full term.”  
  
Thor shivers at this. His cock is swollen so achingly full and hunger runs rampant in his body. He sucks down his lover’s devilish blue manhood, gives it love with his curling tongue. Loki makes soft sounds and Thor feels his consort’s hands on the back of his head.  
  
Thor pulls back and rasps, “I want another.”  
  
“You want more than _that_ ,” Loki laughs.  
  
Thor makes out with the underside of Loki’s cock, hums pleasantly against the hot flesh.  
  
“You will build monuments to me,” the blue demon says.  
  
“I will write you into my people’s faith: the new, blue-skinned fertility god,” Thor returns, impassioned. He takes Loki’s manhood as deeply as he can manage while his fingers tear at the laces of his breeches.  
  
“Will you build me a shrine?”  
  
“Whole temples throughout the land.” The blond divests himself of his fine boots and breeches, then leans back in to suck on Loki’s cock again.  
  
“And statues?”  
  
“If you manage the quadruplets, I will give you your weight in solid gold.” Thor begins to unbutton his doublet with one hand while he reaches his other to the perfect places behind Loki’s balls.  
  
Loki laughs, but the sound is cut short by a moan. “My dear, what would I do with more gold?” He clenches around Thor’s thick fingers.  
  
Thor gets the offending garment off. He shrugs. “Pay more wet nurses? Stand for me.”  
  
Thor’s cock drools as he watches his consort endeavor to stand. He is so full and heavy with child, he is encumbered. It is a decadent sight. Loki presses his hands against the back of the chaise to push his bum to the edge of the seat. He hunches forward as much as his full belly allows and leans forward onto his feet with his knees bent. He blushes and he huffs, his arms going protectively around his swollen belly as he gains his balance and finally pushes himself upright. Standing at last, he extends his blue arms for Thor to take him to the bedroom.  
  
Thor shoves him back down and fucks him.  
  
~  
  
_It was a fine day in the gardens at Whitehall. The court had moved to this palace for the season, most of them already arrived. Prince Thor was one of the last, and when he joined up with Baldr, Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg, he had already missed out on two weeks’ worth of their horseplay._  
  
_Baldr, then Crown Prince, was the first to suggest Prince Loki, the court’s azure curiosity. His and Thor’s fellows took to the idea immediately._  
  
_“He scatters the lotuses of his eyes all ‘round, awaiting the blond prince,” Fandral teased._  
  
_Thor blushed. “Quiet! He has yet to even meet me!”_  
  
_“Ha! My little brother’s first adventure of romance,” Baldr said with a whimsical sigh. His smile was teasing, but not unkind. Baldr turned to Fandral. “What, have you been reading Jotnar poetry now? Fandral, romancer of women, harboring designs to seduce the Jotunn man? By my faith, how did you get your hands on it?”_  
  
_“Oh, I merely lifted some things off his royal person,” Fandral said in a honeyed voice. “Lifted the front of that strange skirt he wears!”_  
  
_“Young Thor will have to pace himself in the dance of love, else the second act will flop!” Volstagg said with a merry chuckle._  
  
_“Only if he doesn’t stomp on his blue feet first!” Fandral snickered._  
  
_Thor tolerated this teasing until he saw the subject of their discussion walking towards them. Prince Loki had not yet been pointed out to him, but there could be no doubt. Who_ else _had blue skin?_  
  
_Jape or no, no one deserved to be met with derision, especially not a recent exile in a strange land. Thor ordered his fellows to silence in a deep, rumbling voice. He was somewhat surprised when they heeded his command. It would be the first of many times his voice brought others to heel._  
  
_A moment later, self-restraint proved too much for Fandral, and a cackle burst from his lips. Then Thor’s regal composure cracked in one hundred places and he was fifteen again, hissing at his friend to shut the hell up and hitting_ _him into silence._  
  
_Baldr shrugged and allowed it. “Remember this, brother: If Prince Loki acts like a glacier towards you, keep courting. It means he likes you.”_  
  
_“What? This makes no—“ Thor balked. Prince Loki was getting closer._  
  
_“I swear it. The Jotnar court differently than we do. If he rebuffs you, he likes you. Well, it might also mean he_ doesn’t _like you, but keep trying anyway! Loki can handle himself, he’ll tell you directly if he wants you to stop.”_  
  
_Thor looked helplessly amongst their friends. Fandral grinned and Hogun nodded and Volstagg patted Thor on the back. Baldr seemed to think he had done all that was appropriate as an elder brother, and said nothing further. The Crown Prince and his friends were only seventeen, yet they seemed so wise to Thor. This brand of courtship did not make sense to him; indeed, it sat at odds with his nature, but he chose to trust them in this._  
  
_Then Baldr’s gaze shifted. He was the first to address the guest of their gaggle. “Good day, Prince Loki Laufeyson,” Baldr said easily. “How do you fare?”_  
  
_Well-schooled in decorum and courtesy, Thor drew himself up to attention before he faced Prince Loki._  
  
_Then he saw him._  
  
_And then Thor_ drew _himself_ up _to_ attention.  
  
x  
  
_Scarcely five minutes later and Thor was in a state. Shame flushed him from head to foot after his disastrous blundering—disastrous from his adolescent perspective—and his characteristic confidence and ease vanished and the sure beat in his veins was derailed. Who_ was _this blue prince??_  
  
_Introductions were made and greetings exchanged, and small talk attempted. And soon Prince Loki had departed, his lips, his hips, his spine, even the hem of his khafti seemed to be curling and swaying in disgust. The Jotunn prince left Baldr and his friends suppressing smirks and giggles, left Thor struggling to comprehend what he was feeling._  
  
_In those few minutes, Prince Loki had treated Thor like no one before. He sneered at the promising, golden son of Odin whom everyone admired and liked on sight. His tone rattled Thor’s characteristic ease. Even the way he tossed his blue-black hair over his shoulders seemed to deflect and parry any and all of Thor’s attempts to recover his bearings in the conversation. But as the embarrassment ebbed, Thor felt a strange, tickling tendril of delight growing like a sprout in his heart. Prince Loki was proudly, blatantly distinct from anyone that had ever made Prince Thor’s acquaintance. And as awkward and inexperienced as Thor was in courtship, Loki’s particular brand spoke to him, like something he could foreseeably come to understand and learn to wield himself._  
  
_Prince Loki taunted, he teased, he picked_ **fights** _—and what did the warrior prince Thor like better than that?_  
  
_It was scarcely begun and yet already Thor could no longer abide calling it a mere jape for his friends’ entertainment. The blond, second prince took ownership of the adventure. He just desperately needed help._  
  
xx  
  
_Prince Loki lived at King Odin’s court then; there would be limitless opportunities to redress his standing with Prince Loki. This knowledge gave Thor comfort, returned his peace of mind about the entire, foreign matter of courting—that is, until he actually saw the exile prince again. Judging himself still woefully unprepared, it was too soon for Thor’s liking. But the journey was already begun, the ball set in motion. Thor might have glimpsed evidence of some go-between business on his brother Baldr’s face, in the gentle spirit, no doubt, of benefitting the bumbling second son of Odin._  
  
_Baldr was like that: kingly and acutely aware of appearances, but kind and giving. In a few years, he would make a great king, a commensurate ruler after King Odin. Better than Thor could ever be._  
  
_Grinning and laughing with the rest, Thor set down his hammer and pulled Hogun back to his feet. It had been a good match, the sort that truly loosed Thor’s mind from the framework of his life and turned him to a sure, potent creature of present and action and_ now. _He clasped Hogun warmly around the neck as their fellows cried their cheers. There was a smattering of applause from the handful of noble onlookers. It was a fine, sunny day and in the palace gardens._  
  
_“I had best place you in charge of my wars, brother, or else my foes will find me lacking!” Baldr commended him. The praise from his elder brother flushed Thor with pride._  
  
_Warm words were exchanged all around, until three newcomers entered their midst. Thor turned towards their visitors, his adolescent heart beginning to shake a little in his chest. Prince Loki and the only two companions he had brought with him in exile: burly Hrungnir and willowy Jarnsaxa. Prince Loki’s friends both wore khafti, although theirs boasted fewer details and modest hues and Jarnsaxa had covered her full breasts with a strip of linen. Judging by the way they all glittered, the fondness for jewelry was hardly exclusive to their blue princeling._  
  
_Fandral, of course, teased. “Beautiful Loki, with your eyes opening and shutting like buds, you signal to everyone the stirrings of love in your heart. Tell us, young prince, who is the lucky man you’re looking at now?”_  
  
_Jarnsaxa scowled at the discourtesy, but the azure prince smirked. He brandished his spear with a flourish. Long red feathers streamed behind a fearsome, sharp spearhead. “But my love, I am for you… Come to me and I’ll claim your heart! I have been faithful; my thrust will be true.”_  
  
_But the silken voice and light tone were betrayed by the flash of Prince Loki’s white, jagged teeth. Each tooth filed!—Thor had not noticed that before. Thor eyed Prince Loki’s spear, noting the sure grace with which it was wielded. Prince Loki could have Fandral’s heart, spleen, and bowels out with a few deft moves, Thor was certain. Fandral kept playing, apparently oblivious to the temper with which he was toying._  
  
_Thor stepped forward and bowed respectfully to the Jotunn prince. “I have always wanted to witness the skill of the Malaiyan warriors for myself. May I beg a lesson from you, Prince Loki?”_  
  
_Prince Loki’s spearhead flicked from Fandral to Thor. Thor smiled; that was it, then. The others backed away a safe distance, creating a ring for their sparring._  
  
_Thor raised Mjolnir to readiness and Prince Loki brought his spear forward, the grizzly head jutting far ahead of him and pointing towards the earth. His blue body became a tight coil and he oscillated slightly in readiness, waiting and watching for Thor’s first move. They circled each other a few steps, Loki bouncing backwards and forth like a spider on the water, until Thor’s patience snapped._  
  
_Thor rushed forward and swung Mjolnir sideways. Loki bent backwards to avoid the blow, straightened and spun to Thor’s side, and cracked the body of the spear against Thor’s side, then again against his sternum. He danced back, evading Thor’s return swing._  
  
_Thor clutched the grip with both hands and brought his hammer down. Prince Loki stepped close, turned his spear sideways, and brought it high above his head to clash against Thor’s elbows. Thor could not stop in time, so the spear jerked his arms straight, utterly throwing his downward swing and loosening his grip on Mjolnir. As Thor was regaining his handle, Loki pulled back into a crouch and drove the butt-end of his spear into Thor’s stomach. The air was forced from Thor’s lungs. Loki spun, gaining torsion, and brought the length of the spear down onto the juncture between Thor’s neck and his shoulder. Thor reeled forward from the sheer pain and force of the blow. He pulled Mjolnir up to swing again, but Loki cracked the side of his spear against the side of Thor’s head, right over the ear, and made the world shake. Thor regained his footing and swung viciously forward; it was not a blow he wanted, but to back Loki off. It worked, he had a moment of respite and it was enough. Thor lunged forward with a sudden ferocity that caught Loki off guard. The blue prince danced out of the way, but without his usual grace. Thor swung repeatedly, aiming for the spear body, to shatter it and win, but he was not fast enough. The advantage afforded by Loki’s momentary surprise was spent and he caught up._  
  
_Prince Loki sneered, baring his filed teeth yet again. The sight distracted Thor, then the spark of pleasure he felt surprised him, distracted him further, made him slower to guard his open side. Loki saw it and swung his fearsome spear down against Thor’s ribs with a jarring snap._  
  
_Thor lost, but not badly given the significant speed difference of their respective weapons._  
  
_Prince Thor saw yet another opportunity to play the lover supplicant and he knelt, head bowed, before Prince Loki’s feet. “What boon does the Azure Prince ask of me for his victory? It is yours,” Thor said solemnly. He hid his satisfaction. He was certain he had scored a point._  
  
_Loki stared down at him in cool silence. Oh, of course he would not speak, for he was beautiful; all his life, someone must have stepped in to give him what he did not yet have. Today, that someone was Jarnsaxa._  
  
_Jarnsaxa planted herself between Thor and Prince Loki and rained down her red scorn upon his fair face.  She pulled the maang tikka from Loki's hair and hurled it towards the forest.  It cleared the border, disappearing between the trees.  Then the Jotunn handmaid slapped Thor's cheek._  
  
_“You have dislodged Prince Loki’s precious jewel in your play,” Jarnsaxa snarled. “Go and get it.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which King Thor and Consort Loki attend to political affairs, involving the seduction of one Alfheim diplomat. Prince Loki reveals himself to be a storyteller and Prince Thor almost returns the maang tikka.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience and support! And 60+ subscribers, WHOA! Blushing bunny!

Her arms have the beauty  
of gently swaying bamboo.  
Her eyes are full of peace.  
She is faraway,  
her place not easy to reach.  
  
My heart is frantic,  
a plowman with a single ox  
on land all wet  
and ready for seed.  
  
Oreruravanar, Tamil

  
_Baldr and Thor walked through the forest, each turning over the undergrowth in search of Prince Loki’s jewel._  
  
_“So…you do not know much of this art at all,” Baldr commented mildly. He was smiling, but not unkindly. The day he was unkind to anyone would be the day he came under fell sorcery._  
  
_Thor huffed and kept his eyes to the soil._  
  
_The Crown Prince sighed. “You did well; you made one step in the dance, and now you must return the maang tikka. Jarnsaxa has positioned herself as your go-between for the next few steps.”_  
  
_“I must treat with_ her _from now on!? The handmaid loathes me!”_  
  
_“She might not, brother. This is the courtship dance: there are roles with ritualized patterns of behavior. Ah, well, she might actually resent you a great deal. Prince Loki would have expected a great marriage in his homeland, had he not been exiled. A second son of a king cannot offer himself in marriage… And yet Jarnsaxa pledged her loyalty to her prince, following him into what is essentially a desert to them.”_  
  
_While mulling over Baldr’s words, Thor nudged aside the cover of a shrub with his hammer. No maang tikka there._  
  
_“She also doubts your character.”_  
  
_Thor frowned. He did not grasp yet why he needed to prove his honor to Prince Loki. “I am not the sort to treat a sweetheart dishonorably.”_  
  
_Baldr snorted. “You haven’t even made love to a lover. Besides, she only knows you as another strange, foreign prince in a strange, foreign land that respects her people and culture as much as a bear does silk.”_  
  
_The blond prince sighed in growing frustration as he shifted another fern and examined the soil beneath it. Nothing._  
  
_A thought occurred to Thor. King Odin would not grant sanctuary to a foreign princeling if the reason was dire. The Crown Prince was privy to that information._  
  
_“Brother, why was Prince Loki exiled?” he asked._  
  
_But Baldr did not answer. He drew a mirror from the satchel hanging from his sword belt and began flashing the reflective glass around the forest floor. “It should be right around here…”_  
  
_Hopeful glints in the undergrowth! Prince Thor pounced upon it and drew up the jewel with a triumphant grin. He dangled it before his face and admired the delicate hook, the fine chain, and the dangler at the end. A sizable cabochon of moonstone or rock crystal lay nestled amidst folds of gold wrought in the shape of leaves._  
  
_“The Jotnar love their jewels,” Thor remarked. His heart lifted; there was one barrier between himself and Prince Loki. He felt a surge of optimism._  
  
_“India is replete with gem mines. They ascribe particular meaning to their jewels that we do not…”_  
  
_They began the trek back to the palace, the heir elucidating and the spare leaning against him with rapt attention._  
  
~  
  
The sudden flood of light jolts Thor from his pleasant drifting in half-slumber. He grimaces and groans, but thankfully he need not rise just yet. The first wakeup call: not intended to get the sleepers on their feet but to give them time to grow accustomed to the idea.  
  
As the servant’s footsteps fade away, Thor forces his eyes open. His gaze drifts from the embroidered edge of the crimson duvet to the thick floorboards upon which the windows’ many-colored panes paint an array of glowing diamonds. The windows closest to the canopied bed are open to the moist chill of early spring air. The gentle breeze touches Thor’s cheek and he rolls over to wrap his arm about his consort. He nuzzles into the nape of Loki’s neck and the familiar scent of his lover steals away what little commitment he has to the project of waking. His beloved drapes his blue arm over his own and Thor is gone, lost in the seductive dark behind and before his lids.  
  
_**“Your graces, it is time to rise!”**_ booms one of Loki’s servants all too soon. Thor gave this servant permission to yell and bully him in the mornings like she would a witless scullery maid until he removes from bed. And she has the pipes to do it, so Thor leaps out from the sheets and onto his feet. He breathes deeply the good morning air, stretches in his pleated linen nightgown, and refrains from telling the brave servant to immolate herself.  
  
Having shaken off the grip of sleep, he crawls over the embroidered duvet to blow in his consort’s ear. The reply is a blue hand abruptly mashing his face. Thor sputters with laughter and wraps his strong arms around him. “Come now, my glittering peacock,” Thor teases, “Let us up and greet the day and its travails!”  
  
“Greet this,” Loki grumbles and makes an offensive gesture. Thor smiles at his love’s cheek.  
  
“Come on, bread of my life,” Thor says and pulls the sheets away from the Jotunn. “Don’t you want to dazzle all the courtiers and ambassadors with your superiority?”  
  
He sees Loki’s hand go to his disheveled braid of black hair, already preening from the praise, and he knows his lover is in good enough spirits to tolerate Thor budging him out of bed. And budge he does: Thor starts by headbutting Loki between the shoulder blades, then lying parallel to him and rolling into him until the blue prince is pushed to the edge of the mattress. He suffers slaps and kicks and some jewelry caught in his hair, but in the end the couple makes the room ring with their cackling and giggling.  
  
The two commence putting themselves in order. For Thor, this entails much buttoning and tying bows to hold sundry undergarments, breeches, and sleeves in place. For Loki, this primarily involves tenacious hair brushing and choosing which jewels to clasp about his blue person today. Most of his jewelry qualifies as love gifts from Thor, but the sheer amount of irremovable adornment reached the point of absurdity many years ago. Now, Loki perpetually wears only a few particularly precious love tokens, only removing them for repairs, and the rest he can choose whichever suits his whims that day.  
  
Thor supports Loki’s weight as the blue prince wriggles gracelessly into a fresh khafti. Just two months shy of delivering the twins, crouching and bending are beyond him now. Years ago, Thor tried to compel Loki to submit to confinement much earlier on in his pregnancy, but he quickly learned the inherent delusion in attempting to make Loki submit to anything.  
  
“Remember, we are meeting with Volund and his fellow diplomats this evening at eight. They are vexed about the tree grafts they received from Lady Idunn’s orchards, so I need you to doubly work your magic.”  
  
Loki huffs as he tugs the hip belt of his khafti to the midpoint between where he likes it and what his expectant shape will permit. “I recall how the Alfheim people are, dear. And with twins on the way, I imagine I _just might_ manage to make him amenable,” Loki says with a sneer.  
  
Thor stifles his next restless urging and concentrates on buttoning his doublet. He was trained from childhood for political negotiations conducted under the façade of private parties, but he has always been better with the more direct negotiators. Volund is one of those diplomats with whom Thor is completely reliant on Loki’s superior graces.  
  
The blond has just finished dressing sufficiently to travel to his own chambers, where his pages will dress him in formal garb, and he moves towards the door.  
  
“Ah, I forgot,” Thor says, stopping short. “Lords Hreiðmarr and Fafnir have appointments today to claim payments and awards the crown owes them. Would my beloved Silvertongue use his fabled wit to deter them from this end?”  
  
“I took care of Hreiðmarr and Fafnir yesterday,” Loki replies, his hands weaving his hair into a fresh, glossy braid. “And I made revisions to several clauses in the new tax agreement for the combined venture of the cloth manufacturers from the capital. I had the lower council legalize it last afternoon.”  
  
“Always ahead of me, my love,” Thor commends and kisses him.  
  
“I am meeting with the ambassador from Jotunheim this afternoon,” Loki says. “I am going to interview Thjazi to gauge whether or not Helblindi’s attacks on our trade ships are merely his customary belligerence or a warm up for outright hostility.”  
  
“If e’er there lived an exile traitor prince who could tease this information from him, it is you,” Thor replies and bids his lover farewell.  
  
Now out of the private space of his consort’s apartments, he is King Thor again. Escorted by a servant bearing a guttering lantern, the monarch strides purposefully down the dark hallway of carven, wood paneling, but a distressing flash in the corner of his vision brings him to an abrupt halt. His stomach lurches and suddenly he feels lightheaded. King Thor turns towards it, discovers the source of the heart-stopping hue to be a mirror and his imagination. He thought he’d seen—but no, that was _Baldr’s_ color. King Thor’s first decree was to outlaw the use of this particular shade of purple at court.  
  
He remembers the Lady Idunn as she once was, as he still wishes she could have remained: a rosy, merry maiden in Baldr’s arms. She had never forgiven Thor, or Loki, or King Odin, no matter where the blame truly lay.  
  
Thor sags against a mahogany sideboard, his shoulders dropping, the breath leaving his lungs. For a long moment he has not the heart to draw another.  
  
He does not blame her.  
  
~  
  
_The sun’s rays were entangled in the lush, flaxen curls cascading down to the middle of her back. Her gown was decorated with feathers picked out in pale gold threads and accented with pearls the size of dust motes. Her sleeves were wide ribbons of blushing silk positioned just so, revealing the lightly embroidered fine gauze beneath. The tight bodice pressed up her little apples, above which her skin was fresh milk, interrupted only by the raspberry of her plump lips and the beguiling blush of her cheeks. Her brows and eyelashes were all but invisible around her kind eyes. Her hands were folded demurely around a mottled apple equal parts yellow and vivid pink in her lap._  
  
_In one of the smaller, private walled gardens of the palace, Prince Thor stood as an observer amused by the scene. He watched Baldr, pacing slowly with his arms folded behind his back and his eyes heavy on the maiden’s form, being watched suspiciously by the governess who sat on the bench beside the wall, while the painter gazed pointedly at every detail of the vision that was the Mistress Idunn on that fair, spring day. By contrast, the bored subject’s eyes cast restlessly about her surroundings, plainly longing for anything to relieve the tedium._  
  
_The decision of the girl’s gentleman father that she must have a portrait painted now, at fifteen, was abrupt. The blush and the smile on Baldr’s face was telling, and the way Mistress Idunn tried to hide her delighted smiles revealing. The painter had sketched out Mistress Idunn’s head and was then working on the details of her sleeves, so she moved her head as she pleased._  
  
_“-but I wanted to be painted with a seahorse,” Mistress Idunn pouted. Her fair forehead was wrinkled prettily._  
  
_“Your house’s sigil is the apple, and you look pretty with them,” Baldr replied, his beguilement continuing to tug his lips into a boyish grin as he gazed upon her._  
  
_“But my family’s home is by the sea. Surely two symbols may be permitted in my portrait?”_  
  
“Your father left his instructions,” interjected the governess. “Some ladies are not so fortunate as to be painted.”  
  
_“Am I a lady?” Mistress Idunn asked the Crown Prince with her pretty head tilted to the side. The double entendre made Thor smile: Idunn’s family was of the lesser stratum of landed gentry—she was only ‘mistress’ Idunn, and could not receive the address of ‘lady’ unless her father’s rank was raised to that of knight or baronet._  
  
_“As fine as Aurora in her tower beyond the horizon,” Baldr answered, “That glorious star whose home is awash in the colors of sunrises, and whose beauty is as compelling as the sunset.” The maiden seemed well pleased with this._  
  
_“Tell me a story about Aurora, Crown Prince!” Mistress Idunn ordered playfully. Whether it was her growing tenderness towards Baldr or her naiveté that prompted the informality, Thor could not say._  
  
_Baldr began to tell the story of how Aurora rescued Aphrodite who fell in the protection of Aeneas, but Thor was suddenly acutely distracted. He sensed something entering his world and it felt as though the entirety of his being was reorienting itself, like a sunflower turning towards the sun. There, just entering the walled garden, he spied the three blue figures that had been causing his heart to jolt and his breath to hitch for the better part of a month._  
  
_Thor turned back to the scene before him as though he had not seen them. He felt his heart begin thudding in his throat. He wanted Prince Loki’s attention, but he knew not what to do in this stage of the dance. He had tried to present the maang tikka twice to Prince Loki, but he and his fellows had only spouted lyric poetry in the style of an outraged or spurned lover in response. Thor groaned internally: What was he supposed to do with that? Perhaps their respective groups would pass each other by without interacting—_  
  
_But Mistress Idunn noticed the trio of Jotnar as they moved past. Suddenly utterly lost to the world around her, she stared with her little mouth closed and her light eyes wide at Prince Loki. Thor felt a ripple of dread pass through him._  
  
_“Why are you blue? Are you a merman?” she asked._  
  
_Thor suppressed a horrified sputter and glanced at Baldr, whose courtly mask had been knocked askew by the maiden’s gross faux pas. Such was the wealth of Idunn’s house that the Crown was willing to overlook such provincial culture in a potential bride for the heir._  
  
_But the foreign princeling did not bat an eye: he performed two bows with a flourish, the first of Jotunheim and the second of Asgard. “Fair maiden, this humble person regrets to say he is nothing so magnificent as a merman,” Prince Loki replied with a theatrical whisper. “But I come from a faraway place where men merge with water and sea dragons migrate from ocean to sky!”_  
  
_“So you have seen them!” Mistress Idunn said wonderingly. “Do you perchance have a seahorse? I want one for my portrait.”_  
  
_“This humble person regrets to say he does not possess such a creature,” Prince Loki replied solemnly. “But I know many stories of the merpeople and their fellows.” Mistress Idunn was well pleased by this. Her eyes began sparkling and she leaned in, grabbed his blue hand, and squeezed it tightly. She smiled brilliantly for him—indeed, in that moment her lovely face was aglow solely for Prince Loki—“When my portrait is finished, you and I shall go riding or to the sea! We will enjoy ourselves there.”_  
  
_The wild breach of etiquette knocked Prince Loki’s courtly mask askew as well. His wide, red eyes slid wildly over the maiden’s face, searching for a slight or sarcasm to give him purchase. Out of the corner of his eye, Thor saw the prince’s free hand was trembling. He had not expected a welcome, Thor realized._  
  
_Thor looked up and saw Baldr looking towards the nearest wall of the garden. Thor followed his gaze to the governess and saw the emotion written on the woman’s face: the way her lip curled as her eyes bored into Prince Loki’s blue body and foreign dress, and the hand wrapped in her mistress’s fair ones._  
  
_Baldr silently stepped between Prince Loki and the governess so he would not see this._  
  
_Mistress Idunn still held Prince Loki’s hand fast in hers, the cheer blooming in her lips and eyes unfaded. She glowed with a rare breed of kindness that struck the observer. To a nobleman, receiving such warmth was enough to make him pause; to one suddenly lost to his home, future, and milieu, it stopped the breath in his lungs._  
  
_It was a day of firsts: the first time an Asgardian person had deigned to touch the exotic Jotunn curiosity, and the first time Prince Thor had known the taste of jealousy._  
  
_“And there I shall tell you all you wish to hear of mermen and more,” Prince Loki replied as his unaffected mask slid back into place. “But—fair maiden, I forgot! You wished for a seahorse, and so you shall have my makara.” He loosed a necklace wrapped many times around his forearm and handed it to Mistress Idunn._  
  
_Thor leaned closer to peer at the unusual pendant she held in her hands. From the necklace hung a strange creature with the front half of an elk and the rear half of a fish, joined by some unseen joint. The elk’s proud, strong body was one polished hunk of carnelian crowned by a set of gilt antlers. The elk’s abdomen terminated in a curving, finned tail of carved ivory, hammered to suggest the texture of scales. Thor could count the ridges on the fins._  
  
_“Makara,” Mistress Idunn repeated as she turned the treasure over in her hands. “Thank you, it is beautiful! But I—I wanted a real one, like my apple. Do you have a live makara?”_  
  
_“I regret, this is impossible, fair maiden,” Prince Loki murmured without batting an eye. “But no one else in all of Asgard will have this makara in their portrait.”_  
  
_Thor suppressed a laugh and glanced at Baldr. He found evidence of his elder brother’s similar strain on the edges of his face, recognizable only to Thor from knowing him all his life._  
  
_“It is beautiful,” Baldr commented. “Now you have unveiled one of the treasures of your culture, I look forward to being further enlightened. Perhaps when we have our merry jaunt, as Mistress Idunn suggested! Now I fear I must attend to her, or else the painter will have lost the best daylight for his work. Brother, I entrust you with looking after our new friend’s needs for our idyll in the countryside.”_  
  
_Thor gave silent thanks to his brother and began leading Prince Loki down a garden path, perhaps a beat too quickly in his eagerness. He glanced repeatedly at his blue companion, his heart jumping each time the red eyes met his own. Jarnsaxa and Hrungnir shadowed them a few steps back, listening and watching but graciously mute. Had Thor not been raised to perform before the court, engaging the frosty Prince Loki with his two companions attendant would have caused him to quake._  
  
_“Mistress Idunn tends to make everyone pause and marvel, “Thor offered with a kind smile. “I believe she thinks you as beautiful a jewel as your gift to her.”_  
  
_A small, coy smile disturbed Prince Loki’s mask of casual indifference. Thor hoped it was genuine._  
  
_“Young ones like that which glitters. Trinkets, tales, and…crowns,” he replied silkily, with none of the dramatic flair he used to entertain Mistress Idunn._  
  
_Thor caught his implication and his smile broadened greatly. “Perhaps! They are not yet betrothed and things are very early on yet, but she is one of the prospective brides King Odin is considering. The gods have been willing thus far; she is increasingly the best political choice, and they seem genuinely taken with each other.” It was all commonly understood amongst the populace at court._  
  
_Thor’s heart quickened a little in excitement for his elder brother. They might be one of those rare political matches who might could actually love each other. If the gods were good, then perhaps! Perhaps…_  
  
_“What does her family offer that outweighs her etiquette?” Loki queried, cocking his head to the side. Thor’s gaze slid over the curving planes of his exposed neck._  
  
_“There are no current or emerging international threats to Asgard, as the king finds, so he has no particular need for a new alliance. Mistress Idunn is her father’s sole heir and will inherit the family’s vastly profitable apple orchards. Acquiring these would be an immense asset for the Crown.”_  
  
_“What is so special about her orchards? I had never before known a fruit to taste so foul it could only be used to make ale and vinegar.”_  
  
_“Not those of Idunn’s orchards! Her family’s estate is replete with the incredibly rare trees which bear_ sweet _apples. They are a wildly popular commercial product and Mistress Idunn’s father has the monopoly on the market. The orchards have consistently reaped enough wealth that King Odin may consider purchasing their loyalty with a title, or through other means.” Prince Loki mused over that for a moment while Thor’s gaze became entangled with the black, glossy braid that fell past his hips._  
  
_“I am unaware of any such fruit used so in Jotunheim. We have a plethora of fruits native to the subtropical region, though, some of which are made into drinks.”_  
  
_Thor frowned. “W-What did you say?” He was met by Loki’s disarming smirk._  
  
_“Roughly three quarters of Jotunheim is snow and ice, but beyond greatest Galdhøpiggen is a subtropical area bound by mostly impassable mountains. Entry is strictly limited. Only members of the royal family are entitled to go there. Jotunheim commoners call it a hellishly hot or a paradise, while most foreigners are unaware it even exists.”_  
  
_Thor tried to reconcile this information with all he had ever known of Jotunheim, the gray land of strange and wild creatures and endless snowy wastes. They stopped by a bush of larkspur which easily put all else in the garden to shame. Prince Loki gave it a brief but approving glance._  
  
_“Aside from my apartments, everything I have seen in Asgard is pale by comparison to my home,” he complained._  
  
_“How are you settling into your new apartments? The Queen had them renovated for your use.”_  
  
_“They are…fitting,” Loki replied. “But everything here is like cloth drawn prematurely from the dyeing vat. Even your sunsets!”_  
  
_“Even our skies…? What could you mean?”_  
  
_Prince Loki smirked at his confusion. “The icelands and snowfields of Jotunheim are characterized by the juxtaposition of vivid hues against expanses of pure white. Everything is defined by intense coloration. Imagine: racing across a vast snowfield on a swift steed, as twenty riders thunder behind you and the colossal aurora borealis writhes over the plain like a shimmering, roving leviathan.”_  
  
_Thor tried to imagine it. He recalled the fierce joy of such racing through open wilds, but he suspected the colors he envisioned paled by comparison. “So you are fond of riding! I shall have the Master of Horse allot you a fine horse, for our idyll and your general use. Are you fond of hunting?”_  
  
_But Prince Loki gazed at him in silence. Thor swallowed thickly. There was a tumult of pleasure in his belly from the molten, admiring look he thought Loki had given him, if only for an instant, and he felt himself dragged deeper._  
  
_xx_  
  
_Thor ran his hands through the loose mane of his russet stallion. If this were a formal court ritual, his horse’s mane would be braided and Thor would sit atop his back in his finest gilt saddle. But the occasion today was an informal jaunt in the countryside. It was an intimate company, as far as social events at court went: it consisted merely of the two Asgardian princes, Mistress Idunn, their noble friends Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun, Lady Sif, a few servants, and…belatedly, Prince Loki._  
  
_There had been no question as to whether Thor would choose one of his red-hued doublets. Red best complemented his coloring, so he had selected a cherry leather doublet and soft black breeches. A servant had cleaned and polished the supple leather boots which now gleamed softly in his stirrups. From his ears dangled precious teardrop pearls and there were rings of emerald, moonstone, and star rubies on his fingers. His blond hair was tied back but, with a nod to Prince Loki’s aesthetics, he wore one strand of hair in a small, decorative braid which originated beside his temple and twisted amongst the rest of his blond locks. Hidden in his doublet was Loki’s maang tikka. He gathered it was a token to be returned at a certain time, and hoped that if he managed to cultivate enough of a rapport with Prince Loki today, it might just be time to present it._  
  
_Thor adjusted his reigns restlessly and scanned about them for the hundredth time._  
  
_Baldr leaned towards him and cautioned, “Our friends can see your feelings on your face.” Thor immediately schooled his expression back into his courtly mask of pleasant cheer. It was close enough to his natural temperament, so it was easy to maintain._  
  
_The sound of galloping hooves echoed against the broad wall around the city and Thor scanned the field for the source. Sure enough, it was Him: Prince Loki was a smudge of blue on top of a white horse pointed directly towards them. Thor’s heart quickened and he smiled in equal parts nerves and excitement. But as the shape drew nearer, Thor gaped. He gave a befuddled glance to Baldr and found he, too, was perplexed by what he saw._  
  
_Prince Loki was flying across the field, pressed flat against his steed’s back, a blue ripple over a white cloud. His khafti was whipping behind him as the great, white horse raced forward; its mouth snarling, its hooves pummeling the earth, its huge body heaving with strength. Visible just above the horse’s shoulder was Prince Loki’s face, split in half by a gleaming, maniacal grin._  
  
_How in the name of any god had Loki persuaded the Master of Horse to give him a…_ a war horse?  
  
_Thor took his reigns in hand, ready to steer his horse away from the obvious worst outcome of hurling a frothing courser into the midst of mild palfreys. Surely Prince Loki would not mount one if he knew not how to control it?_  
  
_But Prince Loki pulled back and forced the courser to decelerate until he pulled up gently alongside Mistress Idunn. The maiden released a sharp squeal and leaned towards him, laying her gloved hands on his blue arms as she exclaimed over him and his dramatic entrance. If Prince Loki sought to delight her, he had succeeded. Indeed, today Prince Loki looked the fierce war god atop his snarling courser. He was bare from the waist upwards, wearing only a teal khafti over unwrinkled leather trousers and strange sandals. Although he held the reins against the courser’s restless heaving one-handed, his maintained his regal bearing, seeming almost unaffected. His posture commanded respect, it not suggested submission._  
  
_Thor’s mouth was dry and his cheeks flushed, but he shook his head; he was a prince, not a peasant worshipper! Then the bile of jealousy in the back of his mouth. Prince Loki was all eyes for Mistress Idunn and she was rosy and beguiling enough to detain the gaze of any man._  
  
_Atop a warmly-disposed mare beside him, Baldr was as usual bright, shining, calm, and smiling. He patted Thor discreetly, soothed, “None of that yet, brother; wait and see what he does.” Then the Crown Prince spurred his horse into a walk towards Mistress Idunn and Prince Loki._  
  
_x_  
  
_“No, pluck this way for the resonance you want,” Prince Loki said with his arms roped around the Mistress Idunn. There was a lute in her lap and Thor, for the life of him, could not force the phallic symbolism from his awareness. Prince Loki leaned close against her back, one arm snaking around her waist to rest over hers on the body of the lute while the other lay over her delicate fingers on the instrument’s neck._  
  
_Baldr lay on the blanket beside the maiden, plainly amused and unconcerned. “She need not perform any more accompaniments! She plays a fine lute as it is,” Baldr prodded gently._  
  
_Indeed, Thor thought as his mood began to threaten thunder, let the lesson end. The game was over, why need he continue this now?_  
  
_“She is too drunk to play anymore, Prince Loki,” Thor said, his voice approaching a surly growl. He cursed himself for drinking too much earlier. If Prince Loki hadn’t been fawning over Mistress Idunn and her bloody lute so long…_  
  
_Fandral’s eyebrows quirked in careless amusement and Lady Sif glanced away, but drink has made her a little less careful of her expressions. Baldr glanced at him and directed attention away from his error: “We are all a bit sore from the rigors of this new drinking game. Fandral, I think you almost had it!”_  
  
_“Bested the Azure Prince thrice,” Fandral said with a grin. “Asgardian drinking games do not normally require such dexterity.”_  
  
_“Oh, go on, the pair of ya! ’Tis unwise to feed the minstrel drinks between rounds,” Volstagg merrily accused Prince Loki as a servant came to pack her lute safely away. Volstagg had done away with an entire wineskin on his own._  
  
_Prince Loki released the maiden and nimbly stepped around the trays of food on the blanket to retrieve the painted box they used in their game. Thor glanced away in time to see Lady Sif slide into place beside Mistress Idunn and place the back of her hand against her rosy cheek. Thor closed his eyes and tried to will away the delayed embarrassment from his tone earlier. At least he would not be subjected to Loki—no, Prince Loki, it would not do to slip again in conversation—laying his hands on someone else._  
  
_“What is this?”  
  
Thor opened his eyes to find the damnable blue demon sitting right beside him. Good! Good?—no, bad, he was tipsy and stumbling and, and he’d been just_ fine _a moment ago when Prince Loki was across the circle from him!_  
  
_Thor bought a moment to collect himself by feigning another gulp from his goblet, but he kept his lips pressed firmly together. “Fig tarts in honey,” he answered. Prince Loki made a small, pleased sound and popped one in his mouth._  
  
_“And that?”_  
  
_“Honey cakes.”_  
  
_“And this?”_  
  
_“Spiced plum mousse with honey.”_  
  
_“There is a lot of honey,” Prince Loki commented carefully._  
  
_“Welcome to Asgard!” Prince Loki gave him a withering look and Thor grinned cheekily at him. He felt the tension in his stomach begin to ebb very slightly._  
  
_“I think this will be more to your liking,” Thor said, pulling a different platter into Prince Loki’s reach. “Figs and pears with chevre, a sweet cheese made from goat’s milk. Do you have goats in the warm part of Jotunheim?”_  
  
_“We do. My mother sometimes took me to see the milking yards past the harem gardens. I remember one of the maidservants showed me how she milked the mother goats, and she gave the milk to me in a cup of hammered rose gold.”_  
  
_Thor tried to picture it in his head, but he had never seen a live goat, nor ever been to anything remotely resembling a farmstead. He could imagine, however, Prince Loki’s dark, slender fingers wrapped around the blushing metal._  
  
_“I take it Asgardian nobles do not show these things to their children,” Prince Loki said._  
  
_Thor’s stomach twisted anew. Thankfully, he was saved from replying, but it meant Prince Loki was again diverted from him._  
  
_“A story! A story! From my Azure Prince,” Mistress Idunn cried with one hand raised in an admiring gesture to Prince Loki._  
  
_He knelt before her with a fist pressed to his heart, the perfect picture of a chivalric knight before his lady love. “What story will you have of me, fair maiden?” he asked, already speaking with the resonant, electrified voice of a narrator._  
  
_“A story of true love for a maiden fair,” she replied with the smile of one who is already tucking in to her desired result._  
  
_Prince Loki smirked darkly, but the feral expression was only a transient glimmer, his face returning to a gracious smile instantly. Mistress Idunn was a maiden of great faith in magic and the benevolence of the gods. Prince Loki must have seen, must have known, in the way predator knows prey without being taught._  
  
_“A story of true love,” Prince Loki pronounced. Already their setting was changing; Thor felt it palpably as his attention anchored on Loki’s voice and his compelling movements as though he had gained a gravitational pull. Prince Loki stood before Mistress Idunn, bent over her as though he was about to pour into her._  
  
_“Once upon a time, there lived a maiden of great faith, kindness, and beauty whom the gods favored, and they granted her a great destiny: she would find true love with a bright, shining prince and become his queen, and live happily all her days. But before she ascended her tower to await the coming of her promised prince, she used her gifts of seidr to create for him three boons to aid him in his greatest adventure. She went to the edge of a lake and took from the wet earth three blocks of clay and fashioned them into four human figures. To one she gave a flute of river reed, to the second a thimble of wine, to the third she gave a mother-of-pearl crescent, and to the last she provided a needle she crafted in the shape of Gram, that fabled sword that reveals the truth in whatever its tip strikes. These she left for the Prince, and went to her tower to wait._  
  
_“Elsewhere in the kingdom, the Prince was touring the settlements of his realm with his comrades: three warriors and a lady soldier. He and his fellows arrived at a certain town to find an apprentice about to be publically punished by his master for poor work. He was a silly, foolish young man, really a boy still, and for failing to attend to his works properly, he had ruined several commissions meant for important patrons. The master goldsmith was enraged and was about to condemn him with a mighty curse.”_  
  
_Then Loki plopped down into a thoughtful pose beside Baldr. “Now, what manner of prince is this, would you say? What sort of man would deserve the love of the maiden?”_  
  
_“He must be kind, merciful, and honorable,” Baldr answered automatically._  
  
_“So he is kind and good!” Loki replied. “To all of his subjects?”_  
  
_“Even the least of his subjects,” Baldr affirmed._  
  
_Loki leaped to his feet and clapped his hands. “He was a kind and honorable prince, and merciful beyond measure! When he saw what the master goldsmith had in store for his hapless apprentice, he could not permit it to pass! But, acknowledging the master’s right to retribution, the Prince accepted the apprentice’s punishment for him. And what a gallant man he was, for the master goldsmith snarled, ‘For the rest of your days, you shall never know what it is to be human again! I curse you, here and now, to the form of a fish, and there is no power in earth or heaven that can alter this spell!’_  
  
_“So the Prince ran to the cliff at the edge of the town and threw himself over, into the crashing waves below. The instant his skin touched water, he grew fish’s scales and his lungs ceased to breathe and his body shrank and turned, transforming into that of a little silver fish. For even the master goldsmith’s vehement curse could not mask the Prince’s bright, shining character._  
  
_“He swam in the ocean until he came upon a weeping maiden. Now, the ocean floor is a strange place to find a lady, so the Prince simply had to inquire after her plight. Even though he was a mere fish now, his first instinct was to see what ill he could put right for a denizen in the realm. She wept so because she was Aurora, and Helios in his rage had knocked down her tower, crushed her handmaidens beneath the rubble, and flung her into the sea. In her grief, Aurora had not the strength to climb back out, and prayed the silver fish to aid her. She gave him one power to resolve all that had gone ill: the ability to transform himself into the shape of any non-human creature in existence.”_  
  
_Prince Loki cast a look at Baldr, the question plain on his face._  
  
_“He accepts, of course!” Baldr said. Loki smirked._  
  
_“The Prince accepted Aurora’s tasks, transformed himself into a swift dolphin, and swam as far east as east went, and there found land. He donned the form of an ant and went upon the earth and found the ruins of Aurora’s tower. There were many great stones strewn about and not a handmaiden to be seen. He turned over each stone, rock, and pebble to reveal Aurora’s handmaidens one by one. But in their terror, they had transformed into vile, vicious Rakshasi, and they clawed and whipped at the Prince even though he had saved them from entrapment!”_  
  
_Loki looked over his shoulder as though confused. “But what man knows how to ease a heart like a satin gown?”_  
  
_Fandral raised his hand with an impish grin. Loki whirled on him. “What must be done, good sir?”_  
  
_“Pretty words, poetry, lauds of beauty and grace,” Fandral replied with his usual cockiness._  
  
_“As the first Rakshasi ran at the Prince, her clawed hands raised high, the clay figure with the reed pipe took breath and leaped forth to meet her! What did the clay man say?”_  
  
_Fandral leaped to his feet with a hand on his rapier and another stretched towards the Rakshasi. “Ho, maiden fair, such a vision as yourself contains all the goodness of life! You are the embodiment of love, of desire, of blandishing persuasion which steals the wisdom even of the wise!”_  
  
_Loki grasping talons turned to fluttering fingers at his breast as the Rakshasi’s heart was pierced. “But then came another, fouler than the last, and what did the clay flautist do then?”_  
  
_“He knelt before her, and called her his lady love—“_  
  
_“Petty words that bounce of my skin hard as scales!” hissed Loki._  
  
_“Nay, in truth, you are the water of my life!” Fandral cried, “For countless lives have survived without romance and love, none without water!”_  
  
_“She fell back, her heart smitten! But the whole horde of wild, thrashing Rakshasi came at him! What did he do?”_  
  
_“He took up his flute and played!”_  
  
_“The clay flautist unleashed his full charm and played a song so sweet, so compelling, each of them were struck: love dripped from their eyes and their tender yields spilled forth in sighs! The handmaidens were returned to their former, lovely selves by his charms and the Prince was saved from their wrath!_  
  
_“Then the Prince transformed himself into a great, silverback gorilla. He dragged the stones back to the foundation of the tower and stacked them high. The building was sound, but something was not right…”_  
  
_Volstagg piped up, “’s no mystery there, my princely bard! You must fill everything with goodness: mirth, laughter, friends, happy memories, good wine, better food…”_  
  
_“The building was sound, but it was not a home! So the second clay figure drew breath into its lungs and came forward to aid the Prince. He smiled and jested and shared his thimble full of wine with everyone and lo, his good cheer made the tower warm, filled the rooms with soft furs and pillows, set up merry blazes in all the hearths, and filled the air with the rich aromas of the kitchen!_  
  
_“And then,” Loki said, turning to Lady Sif, but the shook her head at him. He moved on to Hogun and there wisely avoided inviting his participation._  
  
_“Then the great deeds were done and Aurora was restored to her tower, but the Prince was still cursed. The last and gravest of the clay figures arose with Gram in hand. Breath entered his lungs and his grim adherence to truth guided his thrust as he ran the Prince through! The will of Gram would not be denied: the Prince fell to the ground in agony but arose again, human once more, with the curse upon him forever broken.” There was a smattering of words of praise, but Loki hushed them all with a finger._  
  
_“And yet! There was one handmaiden amongst the rest who was so kind and gentle, so lovely and beloved of the gods, that she had not been transformed into a vile Rakshasi, but had been frozen solid from grief! It was_ the _maiden, the Prince’s love, his destiny, but he could not reach her! Her mind and heart were locked away, slumbering in her frozen body, even as he knelt by her feet.”_  
  
_Still acting the narrator in his tale, Loki flung himself down into Thor’s lap and laid his hands on his chest. Flushing and uncertain of what he should do, Thor nevertheless wrapped his arms about him as he had seen knights do in the tapestries._  
  
_“What would he say to her, his love?” Loki asked him, impassioned. “What would thaw her frozen, despairing heart?”_  
  
_“That he wanted naught in all the world more than she,” Thor answered._  
  
_“Yes! What else?”_  
  
_“That there was nothing he’d ever known which could compare to her left half, save her right.”_  
  
_“She is warming! What more?”_  
  
_“That he would follow her barefoot to the edge of east if only she asked.”_  
  
_“Yes!”_  
  
_“That only she could make him feel at once small and mortal and brave and mighty.”_  
  
“In faith!” _Loki exulted. “And?”_  
  
_“That he would never permit him to know sorrow, helplessness, or worthlessness. That he would never feel alone again.”_  
  
_The affirmation did not come. Loki stared at him, his wide, red eyes flicking over Thor’s face and his thin lips just parted over a word that never came. Thor stared back at him, fighting the urge to trap him there._  
  
_“Yes,” Loki murmured, in his own voice._  
  
_Then Loki remembered himself and leaped back to his feet, back into his persona to deliver the ending: a happy one, in which the gods praised the talents and attributes of all the characters and assured this sound conclusion was unachievable were a single one of them not present._  
  
_Thor applauded with the rest but Mistress Idunn outstripped everyone with her unrestrained cheers. Hogun and Lady Sif cracked small smiles for him whilst Fandral and Volstagg responded to Prince Loki with greater warmth than they had hitherto shown him. Thor was the last to stop clapping, admittedly in part to dispel the sensation of Prince Loki pressed sweetly against his body._  
  
_Thor glanced at his brother and his heart grew warmer at the sight. Baldr was turned towards Mistress Idunn, his tender gaze heavier on her than ever before and her own eyes dewy as she leaned closer to him. Perhaps. Perhaps!_  
  
_x_  
  
_The sunset found the company in clusters of twos and threes. Prince Loki led Thor on one side and Fandral on the other in ever widening circles around their encampment and now they were skirting the edge of the woods.  
  
“Really? How many can the king have? How are they found?” Fandral asked with a rapt attention reserved for the topic of beautiful women._  
  
_“As many as the gods and ancestors see fit to find him,” Prince Loki replied. “There used to be a tradition of five hundred, but the sheer number of sons this produced created instability in the line of succession.”_  
  
_Fandral swore out his awe and envy. “How does he have the time to see them all?”_  
  
_“He does not, and many concubines are forgotten. But my mother was Laufey’s chief wife: his first, and his favorite. Neither she nor any of her ancestors were second to anyone.”_  
  
_As is true of you, Thor mused. Prince Loki seemed too proud and entitled to even attract a distracted lover, much less entertain one. But Thor could not imagine someone more distracting than Loki._  
  
_“Fandral, you deaf hound, come play cards!” Volstagg was bellowing and he was unlikely to stop badgering, so Fandral admitted they must speak again about the beauties of Jotunheim. He bowed to the two princes and turned on his heel. “You’re too drunk to see the cards! Why are you complaining?”_  
  
_Princes Thor and Loki resumed their amble, now entering the forest._  
  
_“Did she come from a noble line of warriors?” Thor asked, curious about this hazy vision he was forming of the proud Farbauti._  
  
_“She was, although her warrior ancestors did not achieve their fame in the sort of battle you might imagine,” Prince Loki answered. “The line of kings from which I am descended arrived in what appeared to be an uninhabited, uncultivated Jotunheim. It was a wild, lonely place in which everything was colossal. The first king gave lands and local governance to his best supporters and his people spread throughout the land. It was only when the first king surmounted the northernmost mountains in his explorations that another, older race of inhabitants was discovered._  
  
_“Beyond these mountains was a strange subtropical region, replete with lush and exotic flora and fauna, and the Dökkálfar. They had lived amongst the rocks and hills of that land for millennia, or that was what it seemed, and their ancient brand of seidr had seeped into the earth, preserving and protecting its warmth while the rest of Jotunheim fell under drifts of snow._  
  
_“Initially, the first king knew not what to do with the Dökkálfar: they presented no threat, but they would be neither subjugated nor subsumed into the greater entity of new Jotunheim. The first king settled on trying to rout them, and so too did his son, and his son after him. But they could not, for the Dökkálfar made a wall of seiðkona and seiðmaðr who stood shoulder to shoulder, maintaining a barrier of flesh and seiðr to prevent the Jotnar from penetrating their home._  
  
_“When the fourth king was coronated, he halted the assault upon the Dökkálfar and positive relations between them were forged. In the end, the powerful Dökkálfar warriors who defended their home achieved this without participating in combat. But the line from which Farbauti descended was no less honored for that, for each who stood the wall was prepared to fight with blades and bare hands, and held the wall for eight decades, without tiring._  
  
_“It was_ curious, _though: in the Dökkálfar literature, all who stood the wall were referred to as_ ‘kings and queens’. _But that region of Jotunheim was too small to support so many monarchies.”_  
  
_“Could it have been an honorary or sacral title given by those whom they protected?” Thor asked._  
  
_“In the context and consistency with which it appeared, it seemed unlikely. I have found no history which varies in the titles it ascribes to the wall-keepers, and the Dökkálfar do not share their explanations with us,” Loki said._  
  
_“Beautiful in bangles and battle. She sounds like the shieldmaidens of which our bards sing,” Thor commented. “Does your mother reside in the subtropical region or in the—”_  
  
_Thor promptly shut his mouth when he realized what he had said. He cast his eyes to the ground before him, but he felt the hollow gaze upon him. For whatever the cause of his exile, Prince Loki had fled in mortal peril. His blood-ties might well have faced the same threat._  
  
_“You are a captivating storyteller,” Thor said, hoping to save the conversation. This was easier with anyone else. “I was not made for subtle word games. I would have us friends, that you may feel free to approach myself, Baldr, and the others at your pleasure. If the other nobles see you with us, especially Baldr, Asgard would seem a warmer place. I would not have you feel alone.”_  
  
_Prince Loki only stared at him, and Thor carefully rephrased, “I would not have Asgard’s highest stratum deprived of someone_ with your talents.”  
  
_Prince Loki scoffed, but then he reached towards Thor as though to pluck something from the sleeve of his doublet. Thor’s eyes latched onto the movement, and then the rest of his body followed suit: he only stopped himself when his hand was but an inch from encircling the Jotunn’s wrist._  
  
_Thor dropped his hand, flushing a little at this latest slip in his courtly mask. “You were saying about Jotu—“_  
  
_“Take my wrist,” Prince Loki instructed._  
  
_Thor glanced over the foreign princeling. “Is this another game?” he asked nervously as he raised his hand again to gingerly wrap around the proffered limb._  
  
_But Prince Loki merely repositioned his hand. “You grip me like this,” he corrected. “So I may break your hold if I choose without hurting you. Do it again.”_  
  
_Thor balked at the thought of deliberately apprehending Loki in anger, but Prince Loki goaded him again, and soon Thor’s hand had a solid, warm grip on his arm. Then Loki found the weak point in his grip and loosed himself._  
  
_“Again.”_  
  
_Thor stepped forward and caught his wrist in his hand. Again Loki freed himself; again he bade Thor pursue. It should have been pleasant, satisfying, to be able to lay a hand on his would-be sweetheart, but each time he did so, Loki would only loose himself and flit a step beyond Thor’s reach once more. It was becoming maddening, to have him so close but utterly helpless to keep Loki near. Much like his inability to hold his attention. With growing frustration, Thor clasped his blue wrist again, and Loki retreated with dancer’s steps, deftly reminding Thor he had yet no purchase in this terrain._  
  
_A feral growl tore from Thor’s throat and he grabbed Loki harshly by the wrist and forcibly wrenched him forth, manhandling him into his intimate personal space._  
  
_When he came face to face with the startled red eyes, Thor’s stomach twisted with shame. This was wildly inappropriate—they were not peasants, one did not presume to_ touch _at this stage, as though Loki were someone of modest value who could be taken and tumbled at Thor’s whim. Thor had profaned Prince Loki._  
  
_Thor should have released him and apologized at once, with his head down and his knees on the grass. But the twilight had come upon them then and turned everything blue, made Prince Loki more so. His skin became the same hue as the midnight sky, his jewels gathering up the meager remaining light like distant stars. Thor suddenly felt acutely small and bare; a mortal come upon a wild and ancient sky god in the wilderness._  
  
_The ferns licked their legs and the little wildflowers bobbed like paper lanterns in the sea of grass around them. Loki curved towards him, swaying into the shadow of Thor’s bulk. Unthinking, Thor leaned in, close enough that he might drape his arms about Loki like a mantle although their only point of contact was his hand on the Jotunn’s wrist._  
  
_Loki’s breath ghosted over Thor’s knuckles. A faint tingling began to spread through Thor’s chest, and it branched out into his arms and concentrated in the skin of his hand. Thor stroked his thumb over Loki’s inner wrist, feeling the pulse: how it raced, how it ebbed, until he could not feel it at all without stopping all his other senses to focus on the faint beat. He felt the tremulous contractions of the arm muscles as Loki allowed his hand to fall lax in his hold. He caressed the inner wrist with a finger, saw the way this made Loki’s eyelids flutter._  
  
_Loki gazed up at him from beneath his dark lashes. Thor melted, he gave him an unblinking, molten look in return. He had been a fierce war god upon his white courser; who was this tender sky god that had taken his place, stepping into Thor’s grasp, willing and wordless?_  
  
_Thor blinked and the shy, blue stranger before him was gone, disappeared down forest paths on swift warrior’s feet. He stepped back, into his own sphere of personal space. Prince Loki coolly took back his wrist and gave him an unaffected look. Thor produced the maang tikka and watched the red eyes still on the glittering object, considering._  
  
_“No, now you must find Jarnsaxa and give it to her. You must convince her to play go-between for you and I.” Loki raised his wrist again, the one Thor had caught repeatedly. “And you will do this again, when we are alone.”_  
  
_“Do I take it this means I no longer need to address you formally?”_  
  
_The Jotunn stared him down with a proud, cold look._  
  
_“This is true.”_  
  
~  
  
They are sat around the dining table in various levels of inebriation: Thor, Loki, Volund, his fellow diplomats of various ages, Lord Volstagg, Lady Sif, and a Tibetan sand fox. Their furred guest has an unusual face that seems perpetually frozen in a derisive expression, and the creature is the delight of Loki and the detriment of those heedless of its teeth. As for its sobriety, well, Loki has always been described as a prudent decision-maker until his third goblet of wine, and never after.  
  
The Tibetan fox was a recent gift of Thor to Loki. On a whim. _Ordering_ it was the whim, but it took eight months to get the thing to Asgard. Now with drink in him, Thor suddenly appreciates the adorable resemblance of the fox’s unimpressed look to his beloved’s habitual courtly mask. He snickers quietly into his goblet.  
  
“…a compelling tale as always, Loki,” Volund commends as he presses his lips to Loki’s bejeweled hand. Loki wore the blouse with many buttons tonight and Thor knows with his eyes closed exactly how many are still closed.  
  
“How else was I to win you over?” Loki asks in a silken voice.  
  
Thor smiles to himself from his chair, a safe distance from them down the long dining table. The true battle of winning Volund over was won about eight years ago; their recurrent meetings since have only been a lyric refrain of a difficult man who is willing to be persuaded by good food and drink, and an enchanting, pregnant companion. He shares Thor’s predilections.  
  
“And I win again,” Lady Sif pronounces in a low voice to the three diplomats with whom she has distracted with cards for the past two hours. However, the poker party of four with which she began has been reduced to two: one man is dead asleep from drink and the other is nigh on joining him on the table. Lady Sif tended to be abstemious, but it went without question when she was surrounded by people she did not care for out of loyalty to Thor.  
  
“I am too tired to see the numbers on these cards anymore. I must away now, alone,” Lady Sif informs her opponent. She rises with neither flattery nor mincing words to soften her departure, and strides purposefully through the doors as if she owes them nothing. Thor has always admired that about her.  
  
Drifting from the wine, Thor tunes in and out of the conciliatory offers Loki makes to Volund in reparation for the grafts of sweet apple trees Asgard will never give Alfheim but cannot say so.  
  
He glances lazily over at Volstagg’s empty chair. He left with two diplomats about an hour before to give them a tour of the kitchens which will aggravate the poor, sleeping servants mightily. He should have a carpenter come to inspect Volstagg’s chair before he permits anyone else to attempt sitting in it.  
  
But a change in tone pulls Thor back to the dining room: tension, no, a hint of anger. The mental image of Loki’s expression sobers him somewhat and he does not stir, to avoid breaking the illusion that he is asleep from drink, but he listens.  
  
Volund’s chair creaks as he rises. “We are friends; blight affects crops. I am untroubled by this,” Volund says mildly to Loki. “King Óðr, however, is no longer patient or understanding. He insists upon obtaining grafts from Lady Idunn’s orchards to create his own for his new…religious fervor.”  
  
Although his eyes are closed, Thor reflexively glances towards Loki. Political partners for ten years, they share a ripple of disquiet: so the rumors of King Óðr are true. If his madness does not pass or if his Queen Freyja cannot cement her own authority in his stead, this bodes ill for Alfheim’s political and economic stability and, in consequence, Asgard’s.  
  
“I trust you will both give this your attention in the coming days. Your graces,” Volund concludes with perfect bows to the both of them. He rouses his slumbering fellows and they depart the room.  
  
Thor opens his eyes to glance at Loki. Theirs is a shared look which he understands to mean this revelation shall be tabled for now.  
  
His eagerness to have back what is his sobers him further, and Thor follows the shadows of the Alfheim diplomats to the doors and closes them with a sharp _click_. Thor turns to gaze upon his consort: now cool and serene, he sits neatly in his finery at the well-dressed table, just the picture of a perfect prince. Except his womb is so full, he cannot sit close to the table.  
  
“My dar _ling_ ,” Thor croons sweetly.  
  
“No _oo_ ,” Loki croons back and Thor smiles. Loki has _always_ indulged him. It is the only maternal thing about him.  
  
Thor stands behind Loki’s chair. He lets his big hands fall heavily on the backrest, his fingernails grazing the nape of his lover’s neck. Having entrapped his consort, he leans in so his stubble all but catches in the black hair.  
  
“Oh? Am I forbidden something?” he purrs with a dark grin on his wine-stained lips.  
  
“Verily, you are forbidden.”  
  
“And what am I forbidden, exactly?” Thor places his hands on Loki’s shoulders and slowly draws them down the lengths of the blue arms. His fingers rise over the swell of the muscles, and then all is drawn in again as the girth tapers around the elbows. His tan, callused hands slide over armbands of pearl and silver, then gold and ruby. He descends further still, down the forearms, to plant over the backs of Loki’s hands.  
  
“I pray you tell me what sin I may not commit,” Thor beseeches as he mouths the tender outermost shell of Loki’s ear. Thor’s hands reach for Loki’s abdomen but his consort deftly knocks them away.  
  
“No!” Loki chirps again.  
  
“I see,” Thor observes solemnly. He leans closer, following the elegant curve of Loki’s neck with his nose. He inhales the fragrant combination of sandalwood and myrrh. The blue skin prickles beneath this barest touch. Loki entwines his hands with Thor’s, blue beneath white, to keep him away from the prize. “Why so shy, my linnet bird?”  
  
“My mother told me about men like you,” Loki replies with a thick accent. “You will feed me pretty words and steal the innocence she saved for me!”  
  
“Somehow,” Thor murmurs, sliding Loki’s hands over his expecting belly, “I think someone already has.” He sucks a bright red blossom into his consort’s neck and is rewarded with a quavering sigh.  
  
“Look at you, little slut, in this state but no husband to care for you. You were such a colt with all the village men. They chased you through the fields and you let them _have you_ beneath the jasmine bushes. How well those farmers plowed the field; there cannot be any less than two in there! And now no one can look at you without knowing how thoroughly you were debauched. You and your precious _innocence_ —you gave it all away in exchange for a bellyful of bastard. Do you regret it?”  
  
“I do, I _do_ , verily! Would the gods but cleanse me of my defect!” Loki sobs into an embroidered napkin.  
  
“Liar! You would still ope’ your legs for even the basest of men, for you love nothing better than a full womb. I’ll bet you bore the child of _every man_ in your village!” Thor attacks Loki’s neck with fierce kisses. The Jotunn sags in his chair and yowls out in pleasure.  
  
Loki’s hold slackens and Thor grasps it at last. Gods, his heavy belly is warm and firm and so seductively full with his babes. Finally having gotten his gods-forsaken hands on his errancy, Thor’s smoldering lust begins to scorch him. He gropes and fondles hungrily, all the while Loki mewling from his wicked ministrations. Thor knows he has found the very choicest combination of touches when his consort begins writhing and sobbing within the casement of his arms and the table.  
  
“Kiss me, my king,” Loki hisses in a mock plea and Thor can no more deny this blue demon’s will than pretend it is not also his own. He turns Loki’s chin to claim the blue lips with his own. He moans at the feeling of his lover’s mouth, the way their lips complement any act of the other’s, the silken way their tongues delve deeper. Loki’s mouth is redolent of the expensive spices of their recent meal, yet now it is ravenous.  
  
Thor pulls the chair back and hoists his consort on to the dining table. He makes a beguiling picture, and his flushed skin makes another along his body: a map of continents of purple against blue from his cheekbones down to the deep maroon of his cock and cunnie. Loki’s eyes are dark like dying blood as Thor’s fingers brush gently at the dewy lower lips; his blue body is all shivers as Thor palms his consort’s cock.  
  
He is uncertain if this khafti is long for this world, but he smoothes the two panels out of the way as best he can before reaching for the dildo in his pocket.  
  
He ghosts the rounded, polished head over the outer lips. The touch is answered with a minor gush of clear fluid and a muscular contraction at the entrance which shakes the outer and inner folds. He massages the outer lips with the balls of his palm, kneading the tender flesh slowly, until juice is sluicing over his hand. He slicks the dildo with this viscous runoff before beginning to work it into the tight furl farther back.  
  
Loki’s arms are twining like creepers about his shoulders as he works the thing inside and against his sweet spot. His breath is hot and his lips desperate against Thor’s face as he writhes and endeavors, clumsily, to take his lips. Thor teases him, kissing his cheekbones, the hollows beneath them, and his defined jaw, before Loki releases a growl that is equal parts ferocious and piteous and Thor relents.  
  
“You would have your king inside you? Add his young to the many spawned from this womb?” Thor murmurs, his free hand stroking a long path from the back of the labia majora and up to the head of his beloved’s cock. He applies enough pressure to create a mild tugging at the outer lips which Loki so adores and his consort spreads his legs wider. He presses against Loki’s little tender spot inside with the head of the dildo whilst teasing the swelling, fleshy mounds behind his cock. Loki is plainly at a loss, for he bucks forward and then pushes back his hips from one source of pleasure to the next with breathy accompaniment: a faint whimper for his cunnie, a rich moan for his rear.  
  
“Many and more, let the king fill me,” Loki whispers as he writhes. Within minutes, Loki is wrested of his eloquence, whilst Thor’s mind is deeply submerged in a pleasant, heady haze of base arousal.  
  
A wordless Loki is a rare thing, its scarcity causing acute flutters in Thor’s stomach, and he drops the dildo in favor of the real thing. Thor releases his swollen, weeping cock from his breeches and presses the head between the wet folds of Loki’s cunnie. The first press of the wet warmth is delightful, speaking to the primal parts of Thor and wordlessly calling him closer. He obeys, the fat head of his cock breaching and stretching wide the circle of muscle it finds and then the passage behind it. The sopping heat is overwhelming and Thor begins to sweat, as though Loki’s physicality is engulfing him. He is chained to this heat and the body which controls it, he thinks as his hips begin moving in that ancient rhythm. His heavy-lidded gaze bores into his lover’s face, into the little crinkles between his brows as his red eyes draw shut, into the flush on his high cheekbones, into the dark, wet mouth that parts around each heated sigh. Thief of his heart; Mother to his children; Lord of his life.  
  
He feels Loki’s hands clench around his hips and Thor answers the unspoken demand: he slams his hips forward, grunting, and begins to barrel deeply into his lover’s cunt. Loki ceases to be a person, now unraveled to an undefined origin of sighs and cries somewhere below Thor as he is swallowed by the act. He pounds into him, the crystal chandelier jangling above their heads, grunting like an animal or a warrior in the forest. He pushes Loki back down onto the table and grips tightly at his wrists, knocking into him so hard that three of the candles above crash down and two are snuffed out in the wine goblets, one in a puddle of butter.  
  
“You came through the forest in a night black as pitch, in search of me,” Loki murmurs rapturously, his dark eyes ceasing to see the world before him, “after you saw me standing by my chieftan father’s side.” It is not enough, the carnality of their act is beyond the nature of this position. Thor pulls back and maneuvers Loki so the Jotunn is on his feet, bent forward at the waist and bracing with his palms against the table’s edge. Thor makes like a ram, certain every thrust brings his hips to collide with Loki’s pelvis to create the reverberations that he—and there begin his screams of joy. Thor moans at his lover’s pleasured shrieks, the sounds causing a riot of sparks in his belly.  
  
The remaining candles begin to gutter, casting strange shadows about the room. Through the hot haze in his head and the changing dark around them, Thor can almost imagine they are mating in the wilds. Loki gives a sharp cry and his hands grab fiercely at the tablecloth.  
  
“You would not let me be, for days shadowing my every step. When I went to meet my friends for a tryst in the night, the field outside my—my village, you—you _found me_ —“  
  
Thor moans over his lover’s prone body. The tight, wet heat and the fleeting visions Loki is summoning around him are too much, too much, he is drawing close. Loki is stealing away Thor’s sense of time and place, as he has stolen away his heart. This thief, this damnable, perfect thief—  
  
“More!” Loki orders and stamps his foot like a beast in heat. “Give it, I need—I-“ Thor grabs hip and hair and pulls so Loki’s back is arched, his entire body crammed back onto his cock as he hammers him. Thor ravishes him, the wild, strange beauty of Jotunheim—in the forests, finding him when his wide-eyed playfellows turned to wisps of smoke in the dark, and stealing him away, far away—  
  
“Give me another!” Loki cries. “I want triplets!  
  
_“Fucking_ —” Thor grabs Loki’s heavy belly in both hands and ruts, chasing after his release.  
  
“Thor—the carpet!”  
  
Thor grabs the nearest receptacle on the table and shoves it underneath Loki’s cock. His lover starts contracting all around him, so Thor must grit his teeth and suppress his own climax through sheer force of will.  
  
The chime of midnight finds king, consort, and Tibetan sand fox lying in a heap of equal parts satisfaction and impropriety beneath a forest of wooden legs. There is a red gleam in the plush carpet where one of Loki’s rubies landed, and a gem-encrusted gravy boat is full with his seed. 

**Author's Note:**

> Same handle as on [Tumblr.](http://radiatorfromspace.tumblr.com)


End file.
